On Politics and the Church

Where do politics fit into the church?  Since hearing a story on NPR contrasting 2 churches, one essentially a church based on a brand of partisan patriotism that practically elevates Donald Trump to the status of the divine and the other a mainline Protestant denominational church pressing for acceptance of all gender stances, both admitting that there is very little for them to talk about, I have been haunted by this question.

I am not for a church that either theologically folds into a political point of view or one that declares everything political as somehow off limits.  The first possibility submerges the church to the political mudslinging of our nation.  The second practically cripples our ability to function.  As an analogy, Interpol, the international police force (yes, there is one of those actually, not just in the movies), has its hands tied against anything ‘political’.  It leaves a rather narrow slice of crime for their work.  To avoid any topic that might be construed as ‘politically motivated’, leaves us with a very narrow slice of the world to operate in.

I am also not one who believes that the sphere of the church is limited to the transcendent, esoteric, end of all mindset that we need to be ‘preparing’ for at the expense of the world around us.

So Sunday, our core verse was Titus 3:2 which is, with the lead in from verse one: “Remind them…to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone.”  Around this is built a two-fold argument by Paul that 1. The Lord Jesus does not need our works of righteousness for our salvation and 2. The divisive individual effectively gets a ‘three strike’ rule to stop arguing for the sake of arguing before they are turned out of the church.

That was written in a time when the church was still effectively an organization with a single voice.  Nowadays, someone does not like our church's point of view on something, there is sure to be another congregation not too far off that will draw them in.   

What this draws down to is not so much a question of political belief but the expression thereof.  Jesus said love our enemies.  Paul is telling us to be nice to them.  So this is a matter of what is appropriate behavior for the Christian.  That brings us back to verse 2.  Be nice.  There is a line from a movie that goes “Be nice…until it is time not to be nice…”  The follow up was ‘when is that time?’  Jesus knows that one, not us.

To coopt a phrase that has practically become anathema to my own political thinking, “make America great again”, that is only going to happen from the side of Christianity when we lay down our anger and rhetoric, all the tools of negative political campaigning and mudslinging, and we come to the table using the rules Paul has laid out for us, in the name of Jesus. 

          The way I see that happening is for all Christians to confess their attitudes and their behaviors and their opinions of their opponents to the Lord, to lay them down at the cross, and to return to the behavior Jesus expects of us so we can really “do” in the manner of people saved in Jesus Christ.

Pastor Pete